Zayda: 11 months

Another month gone!

I think she changed as much in her tenth month of any other so far; she is growing and figuring out things so quickly.

Zayda's current favorite chair. Usually it sits in the living room so she can climb in and out of it all day.

After she figured out crawling last month, she hasn't spent much time sitting still. She can follow the other kids more effectively and get into everything much more quickly now. She has also graduated to climbing. She climbs up stairs, and just generally spends a lot of time trying to get to new places.

She has zero interest in walking yet, and if you try to stand her up she just goes limp till you put her down and she can crawl away. But, she pulls herself up (and if she doesn't just keep climbing to the top of tables or chairs to sit down) she'll pull herself up and walk along them. 

Her exploring has resulted in a few tumbles off things, so she's aware of edges and the heights of things now. She doesn't fall off things very often, but she loves pushing anything she can get her hands on off edges and throwing everything on on the ground.  It's even more fun if she has someone who will pick whatever she's knocked down back up for her so she can throw it again.

And she is getting pretty good at throwing things. Zoran's working on catching with her, too, so she can play basketball with him. Zayda loves basketball and softball now. She'll crawl over to the fence and pull herself up to watch and cheer for Azia during tournaments. She will sit at the edge of the living room yelling and cheering for Lex and Zoran and their daily, mini-basketball games. Of course she also loves drawing all over things–paper or walls or herself, so she may have no time for sports if her devotion to her art continues to grow.

She also loves food despite the fact that she still has no teeth! She wants to eat whatever everyone else is eating. She also loves sunflower seeds. Of course sunflower seeds are not at all a baby food, but she will steal them out of my bag or wherever she can find them, and if I let her have them (which of course I understand is a bad idea) she just puts them in her mouth, sucks on them a bit, and spits them out. I'm not sure why I find it so entertaining. She really isn't aware she's still a baby sometimes.

She's kind of over wearing headbands or hats these days. I can sometimes get her to leave pigtails in, but that's about it. She'll occasionally wear a headband for a minute or two. I'm going to try to give her some sort of haircut to tame the wild craziness sometime this month. Hopefully I do a bit better than last time I trimmed her bangs. It's been a month, but her hair is still recovering. Good thing she's cute.

I love how interactive she is these days. She copies everything and tries to repeat things. She tries to put on her clothes and shoes and socks. (Quite unsuccessfully at this point, but she gets the idea.) She'll also try to put things away or pack up her bag. Bob is still probably her favorite word/ sound, but she's also started saying "Yep." Only sometimes appropriately, but it's pretty cute.


 

This month also brought on a little attitude. She's been so calm and easy-going since birth. She's still happy (so happy that strangers often comment on how happy she seems to be) but she's definitely sassier. She throws things she doesn't want, ignores people purposely, and will yell (which is different than crying) if you do something she doesn't like. She's pretty tiny; I guess she's going to make sure people pay attention to her.

But mostly, she just seems interested in everything. She loves animals, loves her rambunctious, annoying brothers and the crazy rides they give her in the stroller. She spends a lot of time trying to take lids off things and put them back on, and she's become obsessed with both my nose ring and belly button. She's always examining and picking at them.

And music. She likes it more and more all the time. She steals cell phones to listen to and will bob and dance along when you turn on something she likes.

A few more weeks and she'll be standing up, dancing right on through that first birthday!